SANJAY THAPA
Counting on the inflationary control till now under the NaMo regme, the maiden budget of FM Nirmala Sitaraman has hiked Re one hike in cess on petrol and deisel in the Union Budget 2019-20, but she has missed the fact that this year the monsoons have been deficient by 33 per cent and the kharif sowing has been delayed .
The delay in monsoons is likely to upset the inflationary management. Instead of the LTE prediction of June 3, as the arrival of monsoons the actual arrival has been delayed almost by a month leading to a rainfall deficeincy of 33 per cent as per IMD. Not only will this affect the kharif sowing the distorted distribution is likely upset the crop cycle this time. Kharif sowing was down 23 per cent this time though the rainfall was expected to pick up in July and August according to IMD. This likely to upset the inflation computations of the government n the coming months.
Though Sitaraman has counted on the low CPI based inflation — which touched 3.05 per cent for May 2019. And thus defended her proposal for the imposition of cess on fuel and said that there was no worry as the inflation was under contro and thus she imposed a Re one hike in form of special additional excise duty and road cess on deisel and petrol.
The Union Budget 2019-20 she claimed was with a vision for next ten years. She said that though there was no sectoral differentiation in the budget at large but there was a thrust in every sector and sub-sector.Answering questions on the fate of defence, given the fact that she was the previous defence minister, SItaraman said that there has been a hike in both the defence expenditure as well as the defence pensions which was hiked to Rs 1,12,079.57 and said that there was hike in the budget for the NE region. The total defence outlay stood at Rs 4,31,010.79 and accounts for 15.47 per cent of the total central budget allocation.
She said that in bid to make India education system more robust in consonance with the National Education Policy 2019, a National Research Fund would be created to coordinate and promote research in the country which would strengthen the entire research eco-system in the country About Rs 400 crore has been provided for creation of ‘World Class Institution” for year 2019-20 in the budge which was three times higher than the previous year and.Study in India was proposed to lure in more foreign students to study in Indian higher education institutes.
She said that the Standup India had done excellently well and the issue of Angel tax on startups had been resolved. She said that investors filing requisite declarations and providing information on thier returns were to be exempted from any scrutiny. Startups have been given a whole set of tax benefits. She said the budget had set doable and achievable targets for instance the Rs 1.05 lakh crore disinvestment target though higher than previous years was achievable, she claimed.
On crisis of the NBFCs she said that NBFCs were the last mile connecting the retail consumers and hence the government was providing more attention to the sector. She said that NBFCs were the critical component of the baking system and the government has adopted a comprehensive approach to the NBFC financing and was considering regulatory concerns too. .On the issue of reducing corporate taxes to 25 per cent for business turnover of less than Rs 400 crore and that there were efforts to bring more industries in the lower tax bracket. “We are sending a clear message that we are not being rigid to the corporate tax structure” she added.
